The Fourteen Irrefutable Laws Relevant to Successful Health & Safety Management

1 Focus on Class 1 personal damage and use this in considerations of analysis. Class 1 damage is that which permanently alters the future of the individual. Minor injuries are not a good predictor of more serious personal damage.

2 Remove the term “accident” from your vocabulary, instead use the term “personal damage occurrence”.

3 Look for “Essential Factors” not “causes” in ‘accident” investigations.

4 Look to Hazard Identification / Risk Assessment / Hazard Control processes for rough rather than definitive guidance on what to do. The reality is that without a National Class 1 data base a lot of these deliberations are subjective. Too much emphasis is placed on risk assessment scores.

5 The number one job of a safety leader (and any leader for that matter) is to transmit and embed values.

6 When initiating safety change (and any change for that matter) remember “People support what they create”.

7 When facilitating safety learning for adults use Action & Experiential learning models that promote critical reflection.

8 Management focus is the key to quality safety performance.

9 Nothing is more central to an organisations effectiveness than its ability to transmit accurate, relevant & understandable information amongst its members.

10 If it is not face to face it is not communication. Frame communications relevant to the receivers work environment rather than to corporate goals & mission

11 Build trust through appropriate self-disclosure.

12 Use humour to reinforce your messages.

13 Do not take yourself too seriously.

14 Use Haddon’s 10 Countermeasures rather than the Hierarchy of Controls when developing countermeasures.